Clearly Filtered water filters
Pat Cascio 07.15.13
The number one rule of survival is so simple that even a child can understand it: without a source of safe drinking water, you will die in short order. If you don’t die of dehydration, then one of the nasty bugs or pollutants that lives in a contaminated water source will get you.
Given how critical fresh water is, for the life of me I don’t understand hunters, hikers, bike riders or anyone who goes out with some water to drink. As a life-long hunter, I couldn’t tell you the number of hunters I’ve run across who were not only lost — they didn’t have a compass or map — but they didn’t have any food or water with them. They figured they’d be back by the end of the day, so they didn’t need food or water. Even in the Fall and Winter months, you can still get dehydrated and die — don’t let the cooler or cold temps fool you! And,we won’t even get into the hunters and hikers who go out in the boonies without letting someone know where they’re going, or when they’ll be expected to return. The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me!
For the past 6 or 7 months, I’ve been testing several water filters from Clearly Filtered and I can definitely tell you that there is no reason why you should ever be drinking contaminated water. I live in the boonies and have well water; most of the time it tastes ok, but we have iron bacteria in our well water, and at times it turns the water brown and gives a funny taste. Previously, we ran all our drinking water through a Pur water pitcher, and it worked ok for the most part. But since we started using the Clearly Filtered water pitcher, our water has never tasted better.
The pitcher
The Clearly Filtered water Pitcher is great for home use, and it can filter up to 200 gallons or more of water, removing all those nasty things like Giardia, Crypto, Bacteria and Cysts — all things that can make you sick or even kill you. And, it filters 99.99% of those things and in some cases, it can filter up to 99.9999% of nasty stuff from your drinking water.
The one problem we’ve run into, and this is because the water filter in our pump house needs the media re-charged, is that the iron bacteria tends to clog-up the filter in the pitcher. It’s not a big deal to clean the filter ever couple of weeks with a baby bottle brush, or run the filter through the special attachment that comes with it. However, in a survival situation, I wouldn’t recommend the water pitcher as my first line of water purification because of the clogging issue. You certainly don’t want to run silty or murky water through it — if you do, you will shorten the filter’s life span.
The water pitcher is $69.95, and a must-have for around your home. This is especially true if you live in the city and you have a lot of chlorine in your water — this filter will remove it.
The canteen
Next up is the Clearly Filtered Canteen, a military-style water bottle that looks like a genuine US mil-spec green canteen. The canteen’s top is a little different looking, but that’s because the top is actually the filter itself. You first put some suspect water into the canteen, then screw on the top; then you can squeeze the canteen full of water into your mouth and you’re good to go. This is my favorite Clearly Filtered water filter.
The canteen fits perfectly into my old US mi-spec canteen carrier on my pistol belt — right along with my other military gear that I use for survival (I’m old school)! The canteen holds 38-oz of water and can filter up to 100-gallons of contaminated water. I’ve actually filled my canteen with water from mud puddles and drank it, and the water was perfectly clean and safe to drink. The only thing the filter doesn’t work on is salt water. While filling the canteen with murky or really dirty water will cut the life of the filter, you can do it in an emergency. But I would suggest looking for a stream, creek, or other clear water to fill my canteen. At $44.95 it’s a bargain, but Clearly Filtered is running a special right now for only $39.95 — if you are a prepper, survivalist, hunter, hiker, or in the military, the canteen is a must-have in my humble opinion.
The athlete bottle
My wife has been testing the Athlete Bottle. She works in a small town where they use chlorine to filter the drinking water, and the smell is overwhelming — I won’t even drink the water in the restaurants because of the high chlorine content and smell. My wife has used the 28-oz bottle for 6-months and it’s still going strong. She brought it home for the summer (she’s a teacher) and keeps it filled-up all day long. What’s nice about the Athlete bottle is, you can squeeze or suck the water out and it’s good for filtering 100-gallons of water. It’s on-sale right now for $39.95, compared to the regular price of $44.95.
The straw
I’ve also tested the Clearly Filtered Straw. This neat little device is something you can carry in a purse, fanny pack, backpack, butt pack, in the glove box of your car — just about any place. My wife uses hers whenever we go out to eat — she drinks the water served at the restaurant by putting her straw in her glass of water and sucking it through. The Straw also comes with a pre-filter — should you run across some really muddy or murky water, you’ll want to insert the pre-filter into the bottom of the straw, so it will prevent that extremely dirty water and waste from getting directly into the filtering part of the straw and will help extend the service life of the Straw. While the straw is only good for filtering about 25-gallons of water, you absolutely, without fail, must have this in your pack, purse or car — at all times. At $28.95 you can’t go wrong.
My youngest daughter is wrapping-up an enlistment in the US Army as a Combat Medic – she is stationed at Ft. Hood, TX and they have some really bad tasting drinking water there – most soldiers purchase bottled water. Since we sent her the Clearly Filtered stainless steel 28-oz water bottle, she hasn’t had to spend a penny on bottled water. If you think about it, spending $44.95 on a filter saves you money if you’re normally buying bottled water at a buck a bottle. In her case in particular, soldiers drink a lot of water — probably several bottles each day — this filter pays for itself in a few weeks, and it will filter at least 100-gallons of water.
Conclusions
If you’re a hunter, hiker or backpacker, shame on you if you don’t some kind of water filter with you at all times — a good filter can and will save your life. Clearly Filtered makes some of the best filters I’ve tested, and I can recommend all of their products without hesitation.
